As a British taxpayer, if it's legal, I don't see the problem. If our government (i.e. the "tax man") wants to make a deal out of it, perhaps they can get to passing some sane tax laws or just tell the truth and explain these situations have come about primarily due to EU tax regulations we can't get out of (although that would play right into UKIP's hands.. aha!)
The way some people seem to see this is "Google contributes merely £6 million to the UK economy", which is obviously not true.<p>Like individuals, corporations want to pay the least possible tax. If they're paying the legal minimum, what's the problem? If the British people want them to pay more tax, then elect a government which would change the tax law. At the moment, we're electing a government which hisses at corporations to make good headlines.
Shouldn't everyone pay their fair share? Google is using public resources but then shifting profits around to other countries that have a 0% effective corporate tax rate through shady accounting practices and just falling behind the defense that "This is how all multinational companies do their taxes." What happened to "Don't be evil"? Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/03/15/what-money-could-buy-if-google-apple-paid-full-taxes/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/03/15/what-money-...</a><p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/google-revenues-sheltered-in-no-tax-bermuda-soar-to-10-billion.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/google-revenues-she...</a><p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/13/google-tax-dodge_n_2292077.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/13/google-tax-dodge_n_...</a>
If Google is complying with the law, and if the public perception is that Google is paying too little taxes, then the public should push for a law change.<p>It is not Google's task to pay taxes. Google's task is to comply with the law. Without putting itself at a disadvantage compared to their competitors.<p>Obviously, since we are talking about international issues here, there must be some kind of international agreement for changes in the law to have any kind of effect. But, as we have seen in recent cases regarding european fiscal matters, (or banking regulation, or executive pay, or, or ...) Britain opposes any kind of agreements in international taxation issues.
There's some interesting dissonance on HN.<p>Taxes - "They're obeying the law; what's the problem?"<p>Patents - "They're obeying the law, but the laws are stupid."
I'm really torn by articles like this.<p>On the one hand Google benifits massively from our education, university, health and infrastructure spending. All of which is paid for through taxation and all of which isn't perfect and more money would help.<p>On the other hand, Google employs a lot of people and pays them well, it sponsers a lot of community efforts and just having their knowledge pool in the UK should spin off a number of projects employing more etc. They bring a lot to the table.<p>My gut feeling is that the UK is at a net loss but things like this are very hard to quantify and I would not like google to leave the UK even though I'd personally never work there.
<i>Eric Schmidt has defended paying just £6m in UK corporation tax.</i><p>If they didn't pay what was required of them legally take them to court. Otherwise STFU, they paid their dues. Change the law if you don't like it